The Last of the Demons
by FlamingWolf
Summary: A crossover fic with Eclipse, Piccolo Daimao, and InuYasha.


Eclipse stopped and looked around, extremely uneasy. He supposed that it no longer mattered, but so many years of being cautious overrode any suicidal instinct.

He shook his head. He had failed. Raenef was dead. There wasn't anything left to him now. He was ridiculed by all, and could feel that the era of the demons was slowly slipping away from him. No one had seen the daimao in a couple of years, and he, Eclipse, had lost his master.

His friend...

Instantly, he loathed himself for that thought. Demons were cold, heartless. They didn't have friends. They certainly didn't love.

The shadow moved again. His finger burned with unreleased energy. He hated cities. And yet, he had wandered out of the forest into a place where buildings were taller than the height of five trees and mortals moved in thick crowds along wide streets made narrow by the sheer numbers of pedestrians. Noisy things made of metal careened fast as horses, with mortals inside. And yet, there was no magic.

_Mortals should not have these things. Where did they get them? And where is the magic? We can't have used it up already..._

"You're the demon Eclipse, aren't you?" The dog-demon crouching on the branch dropped down into the shadow and approached cautiously, hand on the Tetsusaiga. "I haven't heard of your exploits for four- fifty four, rather- years."

"Were you not magically bound to a tree by the priestess-who-guards recently?" Eclipse answered. "And who has given such things to mortals without magic?"

Neither could attack, since neither claimed this territory for his own. This was neutral territory, and besides, each was eager for information from the other.

"You're a bit behind the times. I slept magically for fifty years, and was reawoken by Kikyo's reincarnation. You disappeared without a trace four years before I was bound. How can you use the well?"

"Well?" Eclipse was puzzled. "I wandered here."

InuYasha actually chuckled. "Then you have been wandering for over five hundred years, my friend. The mortals record this year to be 1997. I was bound in 1489, and slept until1539. Kagome, Kikyo's reincarnation, lives in this era, but uses the magic of the bone eater's well to hunt Naraku at my side." He omitted the story of the shattered Shikon, to save his pride.

"Five hundred years? Has it really been five hundred and twelve years that I have wandered? I believed it only months." Eclipse wondered in shock. He had mourned alone for so long...

"Kagome and the Shikon jewel play with time freely." InuYasha noted. Eclipse and the dog-demon stared at each other, the conversation possibilities worn through. Both looked up at the slight sounds from overhead and knelt as the daimao landed. Piccolo stared at the two of them.

"Is my father's aura still so noticeable on me?" He asked. "Don't bow to me. I am just his son. I came because of the sense of two demon lords in this city."

"Did you not inherit his place?" Eclipse asked.

"I did. I was corrupted and sealed him away."

"What corrupted you?" InuYasha asked, in his usual tactless manner.

"The same that corrupted you both. Love."

The other two glanced at each other in confusion. Piccolo sighed.

"Demons are supposed to be cruel, heartless. When we at last learn love, it becomes our downfall, because demons are so fanatically loyal, whether to clan, duty, or mate. You have seen it in the brothers Hiten and Mantan. Your love, InuYasha, for Kagome and Kikyo, as well as your obsession with the Shikon jewel. Gates' successor was to be a young woman named Mitsurugi Ryoko, but her love for Shizuma, as well as friendship and her love of this world, kept her from becoming a demon lord." He paused. "I mentored a boy, much like Eclipse's Raenef, the son of my greatest enemy, to protect my plans for domination. I became...fond of him. I later mated a woman who finished what Gohan had begun.

"The era of demons has ended. Our wars stripped the magic from this world. All that is left to control is either ki or kamui, and humans have forgotten those tricks for the most part. They have become the dominant race- or perhaps just the more prolific. That is what I came to tell you: it is time for us to fade."

With those ominous words, Piccolo Daimao turned and left, to return to friends and mate. A very subdued InuYasha slipped back into his tree, and from there quietly into Kagome's room to await her return from school. Eclipse's mind reeled as he staggered across the grounds of Kagome's family's temple. Raen was dead, and his own power would soon crumble in this strange world of mortals. Piccolo and InuYasha would be happy with their respective mates. He had nothing.

He never consciously made the decision to draw the last magic from the world as he pulled out his ceremonial dagger. He made a quick, vicious cut. The roots of the God-tree hungrily drank the blood of the last demon lord.

And the gods smiled to see the end of the millennium-long war...


End file.
